A Brother's Love
by Ski000Girl
Summary: With two-thirds of the Potter Clan sitting in the Headmistress' office for defending their sisters honour, two cousins bond over the turmoil's associated with growing up.


_Click...Click...Click._ Her footsteps echoed back towards them as she paced back and forth behind them. They were too scared to turn to see where she was. Instead relying on the sounds of her movement to tell them where she was. They were lined up, oldest to youngest, sitting in wood high backed chairs. The youngest of them squirmed uncomfortably. This was the first appearance she had made in the notorious office of the Headmistress of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, and she had a horrible feeling it would be the last room in the castle she would ever see.

If she wasn't so terrified she would have noticed the portraits situated around the walls of the elaborate room. Their occupants had all converged into one and were animatedly discussing the familiar traits of the three students sitting before the Headmistress' desk.

The two elder students unlike their younger counterpart were far more familiar with the hard seats that they currently were perched on.

All of a sudden the footsteps stopped and the youngest let out a small squeak of fear which earned her a couple of silencing glares from those sitting beside her.

Just as soon as they were sure they were going to get expelled the door behind them flew open with a bang, admitting a fiery redhead who doubled over to catch her breath, "I swear...I," she lifted up her head and made eye contact with the stern witch who was staring her down, "I saw it...all. Don't...expel...them."

"As much as I appreciate your concern Miss Weasley, I believe I have all the information I need right now to take care of this myself. Please excuse yourself and wait outside."

"Yes, Professor, I mean Headmistress," she stammered, "I apologize," she then quickly made her exist the same way she had entered.

The women now standing before them, Luella Cutteridge was a very stern witch who had only been granted the title of Headmistress at the beginning of the school year. Before that she had executed her role as the Slytherin Head of House and the notoriously hard teacher of Arithmancy. After the schools previous Headmaster had suddenly fallen ill, he had quickly been replaced.

The only reason the two boys were nervous were because they had never been sent to Cutteridge for punishment. She was not their Head of House and neither of them had bothered taking Arithmancy, so all they knew about her punishment style was what the rumours had told them. Danglish, the Headmaster before them had been a right laugh and it became quite apparent that he was far more interested in understanding the logistics of what they had done over actually punishing them for their actions. Cutteridge was not going to be so easy to get past. That was probably the reason why the two boys had managed to go a full three months before they were caught breaking rules. It was a record for them.

Cutteridge pulled back her chair and sat down with perfect posture. She clasped her hands in front of her atop the massive expanse of her solid wooden desk. The deep red polish on her fingernails gleamed as it reflected the light emitted from the candles that floated above the desk.

You could have heard a pin drop in the room as the Headmistress sat and stared at her pupils. The girl hastily wiped a tear that was threatening to escape her lashes. She had never felt so small in her life. She had only heard the rumours about Cutteridge's forms of punishment. None of the stories made her eager to hear what the Headmistress was about to say.

"Miss Potter," the Headmistress said. Her perfectly plucked eyebrows were raised in a terrifying fashion and the colour of her lips perfectly matched her fingernails. The way her hair was tied up was so severe that it appeared to be pulling here eyes up into her forehead. If anyone was going to get technical, hey would say that she very closely resembled the snake that Slytherin was notorious for.

"Yes," the girl whimpered.

"You may go and on your way out please take your cousin with you. Tell her that I will not have my Prefects sitting and eavesdropping outside my door and if I should ever discover her doing that again she shall kiss her dream of becoming Head Girl good bye. As much as I would like to see both a Head Girl and Boy come from my own house next year. Is that understood?"

"Yes, ma'am, thank you ma'am," she stuttered as she pulled herself to her feet. Her feet couldn't keep up with her brain though and she tripped over the legs of her chair as she bolted out of the office. She knew she was abandoning the other two, but she also knew that if Cutteridge was giving her a reprieve it was not in her best interests to stick around.

Sure enough, just as the woman had said, her cousin was sitting outside the door.

"Lily!" she jumped up and ran over to her younger cousin, enveloping her in a tight embrace, "what happen? I was walking down the corridor and I heard a commotion and then..."

The stress of the past half an hour finally overcame Lily and she burst into tears.

"Come," the older redhead said, grabbing her arm and leading her carefully down the spiralling stairs. The first empty classroom they came across, Rose pulled Lily into and pushed her down into a sitting position atop one of the desks. She herself remained standing though.

Rose handed Lily a tissue which she then proceeded to wipe her face and nose in a very unladylike fashion.

"Come on Lily, how are you supposing you're going to attract a boy when you start blubbering the second you get into a small speck of trouble?"

That was exactly the wrong thing to say to an already distraught Lily.

"Hey Lily, snap out of it. I'm sorry. Tell me what happen. Why are two-thirds of the Potter clan currently sitting in the Headmistress' Office?"

"She's going to expel them," Lily whimpered, "she hates Gryffindors."

"No, not really, it just seems so. She's actually not that bad. She just appears as if she's more angry than she actually is. Believe me. She's my Head of House."

All of the Potter children had been sorted into Gryffindor, along with Rose's younger brother Hugo. The sorting hat had broken from tradition though and placed the eldest child of Ron and Hermione Weasley into none other than Slytherin. It had been a sour topic for Rose's Father for many years, it was just something he couldn't get over. Claiming that he couldn't believe the first Weasley to not be placed into Gryffindor in decades had to be his daughter, and Slytherin no less.

Over the years though his distaste for the sorting hat had evolved into a sarcastically bitter slew of words. It wasn't uncommon for a family dinner to be filled with anti-Slytherin jokes that everyone knew was just Ron's obscure way of explaining how proud he was of his daughter. She had done well in Slytherin, flourished actually.

Lily was extremely close to her older cousin. Having two older brothers, she sometimes felt she needed a sister to confide to, and Rose had been waiting in the wings. Their relationship had permitted Lily to learn a small fact about Rose though that nobody else was privy to. Rose, having been a very headstrong child had decided right off the bat that she didn't want to be the cookie cutter Weasley. She wanted to break from tradition, and even at the tender age of eleven wanted to push her Father's buttons. Simply because he was so easy to infuriate.

As such when the sorting hat was placed on her head all those years before, it had been about to shout out Gryffindor when Rose had mumbled, "No," without any hesitation then the hat had shouted out, "SLYTHERIN!"

Rose had thrived in the more competitive environment that Slytherin had to offer, and as she grew older she was the first to argue that the only real difference between the rival houses was that the Slytherin's just happened to be a bit more selfish in their quests for success. This always earned her an ever so slight nod and the hint of a smile from her mother. It was a long standing realization on Rose's part that her mother was not nearly as anti-Slytherin as she may appear to be. Rose had interpreted some clues and had come to the conclusion that Hermione Weasley had a very in depth understanding of what being Slytherin meant. An understanding very unlike that of her immature husband.

"Talk to me Lily, why did they attack him?"

Lily just shook her head as she fought to control her tears. It hurt to much to talk about it, even to her beloved cousin.

"Your brother's play rough sometimes, but they just don't attack someone out of the blue. At least not in a crowded corridor outside the staff room. What happened?"

"He...he...," but she was still shaking to much to talk.

Instead of trying to pry any information out of her, Rose instead tried a different angle. She sat down beside the smaller girl and pulled her towards her. At fourteen Lily was just beginning to blossom into a young woman. Her face was beginning to lose the roundness that was trademark of a young girl. Now her features were becoming more pointed as the rest of her body developed into luscious curves. It was amazing how much she resembled her mother, even down to the freckles that sprinkled her nose.

Rose knew they looked very similar. Both sporting the Weasley hair and facial features. It really hurt Rose to see Lily so distraught because the younger girl, while maybe not as assertive or confident, still reminded her a lot of herself.

The two girls just sat there for several minutes. Clinging to each other and rocking back and forth. Rose really didn't need to enquire about the reason the her cousins had been caught ganging up on a fellow student. She had heard the rumours, and having been a student of Hogwarts for six years, she knew that the rumour mill was more often closer to the truth than any of the Professors would care to admit.

Over the past few weeks it had been whispered that a boy in Rose's year of the name McLaggen had been harassing Lily. Lily hadn't confided this to anyone, but as soon as Rose had got wind of the rumours she had quickly owled her Mother. The name McLaggen sounded all too familiar. Sure enough, he was the son of the man who had interrupted Rose and her Mother one day while they were sitting in Diagon Alley eating ice cream cones. He had rudely sat himself down on the empty chair and proceeded to tell Hermione Weasley that she should leave her husband because he wasn't good for anything, unlike himself. At the age of 9 this comment had reduced Rose to tears.

Apparently the apple didn't fall far from the tree when it came to the McLaggen men.

"I can't help you Lily unless you talk to me. I'm sure whatever he did to you, somebody has done worse to me. Unless you tell me, I can't explain to you how it could be worse."

Rose knew that all Lily needed was some coaxing. She was the type of girl that never talked about how she felt. It was a foreign concept for Rose who was well known for letting fly without a second though even the most intimate parts of her life. On the other hand, Lily would resist and resist until the interrogator would all but give up and turn to leave which would then earn them a rushed comment or two by Lily.

"They...he..." Lily stammered again.

Rose closed her eyes and massaged her temples. Up until that moment she had forgotten that all day she had been fighting a raging headache that could be traced back to the stress of running into one blond Malfoy at the crack of dawn when she was sneaking back into the Slytherin dorms.

"Why don't I tell you something Lily," that earned her a brief glance from the younger girl, progress! Now she just had to be careful how she worded this. It was no secret that she had no trouble attracting the opposite sexes attention, and if Rose had figured correctly that was where Lily's problems were lying. She felt that she wasn't pretty enough, smart enough or slutty enough to attract a boy. Rose wanted to explain to her that guys were really stupid, but it would be hard to do that without drawing from her own reserve of experiences which were filled with countless guys.

"About a month ago this guy I was really into approached me. I was ecstatic, he finally noticed me. I'd been doing a lot of stuff since we returned after the summer to try attract his attention and it finally worked. We both know I don't spend much time on a guy, but I thought he would be different. I felt like he was somebody that I could be with, and I mean really be with. He was smart, rich and really easy on the eyes. It turned out that what I had interpreted as him having feelings for me was just about as far off as I could get. You know I still don't think he sees me as a girl. I'd parade through the common room in short dresses and low shirts. Tight clothes and the most fashionable robes but he wouldn't even look up from his stupid game of chess or cards.

It's a horrible, sinking feeling when you feel you aren't worthy, and then you see him walking around with some little bimbo on his arm. I tried making him jealous, avoiding him, anything I could think of. What I've realized now is that the only person I was embarrassing was myself. In the end that's what you have to think of. Are you hurting him or you more by what you're doing? Maybe one day he'll smarten up. Realize what's right before him is better than anything that he has been searching high and low for, maybe he won't. At the end of the day if you don't respect yourself, why should he?"

This earned her a slight nod from Lily. Apparently she was listening after all.

"Do you see what I'm saying Lily?"

"It makes sense, I know that, but I just can't believe it. Do you know what I mean?"

Success! A full sentence.

Rose nodded in response. She understood all to well what Lily was saying. She didn't know how many times she'd give someone advice, knowing it was the right thing, but still find herself not doing that exact thing. It was the worst of your days Rose had found when you found yourself not being able to live by your own advice.

"Why don't you tell me then?" she hoped she wasn't pushing to hard. They had made progress and she would hate to see Lily pull back into her shell and refuse to form sentences.

"I can't Rose," she shook her head and started to pull away, "I just can't."

Okay she had to think of another angle, "Okay then just listen. Then I'll leave you to your thoughts," she knew that that wasn't what Lily wanted. She didn't want to be alone, and so if it meant talking to keep her cousin around, that was what she would do.

"Rose I tried. I tried so hard and he just walked away. I just feel like I want to be sick. I tried to not fall for him. I know what he's like. I know who he is, but pretty quickly I couldn't keep him out of my thoughts. I'd look for him in the corridors, the common room and anywhere I went. I couldn't focus in class, because I was plotting out how I could accidently run into him when I left class. I'd take the long route just so I could see him leave his class and head down for lunch, but then I'd have to run to make it to my next class in time. He's all I can think about."

Rose knew all too well the emotions that Lily was fighting. They were debilitating feelings. She had felt them many times before, as much as she tried to fight them. It was believed around the school that Rose Weasley didn't fall for a guy. She didn't like guys. Instead she chose the more masculine route and preferred to conquer guys in the sexual sense. That was far from the truth. Rose had come to realize that she jumped from guy to guy only because she was unable to secure the one she really wanted, and she was too scared to spend her time alone.

For all the girls out there who were alone, Rose's heart went out to them, but she knew that they were far stronger individuals than she was. It didn't take a courageous person to throw your clothes off and straddle any random guy. It just took stupidity. That was probably the reason why she had been placed in Slytherin. She wasn't a courageous person.

"He found out that I liked him, that I really liked him. I told people, friends. I wanted him to know but I didn't want to tell him. I had hoped that if people around me knew, even if I swore them to secrecy that they would still take it upon themselves and go tell him. Or at the very least, he'd overhear someone talking. It didn't happen, so I became more stupid, but I still couldn't talk to him. Then last week, he must have found out somehow. I don't know who told him..." she swiped another tear as it trailed down to her jaw-line.

Now Rose figured she'd hear how he began ignoring her and avoiding her. What she didn't expect to hear was what came out of Lily's mouth next.

"He approached me last weekend. Walked straight up to me and without saying anything nodded in the direction of an empty classroom. I assumed he just wanted to talk."

Her heart sunk, and she prayed that they had only talked. McLaggen was the last one anybody would want to put his hands on Lily. He was a disturbingly awful person. Rose knew that on a personal level. He had attempted to take it too far one night with Rose, citing that it shouldn't matter to her, she slept with everyone anyway. That had earned him a well placed slap from Rose and a curse or two.

"We went in the classroom and he locked the door. I didn't think anything of it..."

Rose couldn't hold her tongue any more, "Lily did he hurt you?" she knew that she had struggled in physically pushing McLaggen away and she wasn't as tiny as Lily was.

"Yes, no, nothing like that. I know what you're thinking, and no."

Relief surged through Rose, thank you Merlin. They could deal with being made fun of, or being ignored but if he had...had raped her, she didn't even know what to think. Rose herself had been taken advantage of while she was at a party and it had been the lowest feeling. The thought that poor, innocent Lily may have to deal with that was sickening. The poor girl had never even known what a true kiss felt like, if she only had the horrible feeling of being taken advantage of in its place, she may never want to go near a boy again. At least they didn't have to deal with that. It was beginning to take shape in Rose's mind though why Al and James had taken it upon themselves to attack a seemingly innocent person. Not that anyone with the last name McLaggen was really all that innocent.

"Because if he did Lily, you don't have to be worried about telling me. I can promise to not tell anyone if that's what it takes and we can just talk, or I could help you find someone else to talk to."

"Thanks Rose, that means a lot but I promise you, he didn't hurt me like that."

Lily was two years junior to Rose, making Rose sixteen. She had seen and done a lot in those years, but Lily still seemed like an innocent child. Someone who shouldn't be crying over heartbreak or boys yet. Apparently that was the age though. She was no longer a child, instead wanting to be an adult so badly, but she wasn't there yet. Some days though she would yearn to frolic barefoot in the leaves instead of having to study for an exam. It was a stressful age to be at. You didn't know where you belonged. Where you a a girl or a woman? At fourteen you were both yet neither.

"Care to explain to me then why your two brave or maybe stupid older brothers decided to start throwing hexes in the corridor?"

"They heard a rumour."

Oh, the fateful rumour, Rose wondered which one had graced her male cousins' ears. There had been a few circling around with each one more unpleasant than the last.

"And what rumour would that have been?"

Finally the dam broke, "Apparently McLaggen was bragging about how he had approached me and I flung myself at him and pushed him into a broom cupboard where I proceeded to fuck him."

Lily never swore, which caused a small intake of breath on Rose's part.

"He's in the same year as you and Al, so Al heard him talking about this really loudly to his friends in class. Well, then Jay was talking to his girlfriend and she was telling him how she had heard from a friend of hers that McLaggen was being dared by his friends to get me to become his so called girlfriend and then he was going to break up with me very publicly and tell me that it had only been a joke. All those things, you know?"

"Did the boys come and tell you this?"

Lily nodded ever so slightly, "Last night, they promised me they wouldn't do anything."

"What happened then?"

"Well, we were all heading down to dinner and he was standing at the top of the staircase shooting his mouth off. I don't know what he said. Al grabbed me and pushed me off in the other direction. He then ran off after Jay. Then I saw sparks and screaming. Then we were in Cutteridge's office. Oh Rose, I thought I was going to get expelled. What if they get expelled? They were only trying to help me? She can't take their wands for that can she? I know they attacked somebody but if you factor in what he was doing, they weren't really that much in the wrong."

"Cutteridge is fair Lily. Yes, she's Slytherin but she won't make a decision about anything without first gathering all the information."

"But you're saying she still may expel them. Merlin, my parents are going to kill us. Jay's so close to being finished. She can't do that..."

"Come here," Rose ordered Lily to come sit back down on the desk top as she had begun to pace relentlessly around the front of the classroom.

Lily obliged, but this time she didn't sit close to Rose. Instead she sat on an opposite desk and glared at her cousin with her arms crossed across her chest.

"Go back to your common room. I'm sure Al and Jay are there and they'll be wanting to make sure you're okay."

"Fine."

"Lily did he do anything to you in the classroom? Please tell me. What happened in there?"

Lily didn't say anything. Instead she tilted her head and lost herself to her thoughts. It almost appeared as if she was fighting with herself over whether or not to say something.

"I'll come find you later. I better go find the boys," she then jumped up and raced out the door. Without even a word of thanks to Rose for picking her up off of the ground.

Ever so gently Rose lowered herself into a horizontal position across the top of the desk. Her head was pounding out of her skull and she was worried about Lily. After the way she had bolted out of the room, it appeared that maybe she hadn't been as truthful when she said that McLaggen hadn't hurt her. If he had, Rose vowed that she would teach him a lesson, one that would have him waking up in St. Mungo's on his thirtieth birthday, and unlike those cousins of hers, she would not being doing it in front of half the school. As much as she told Lily that Cutteridge wasn't that bad, it didn't mean she really wanted to be in her office defending why she should keep her wand, or not go to Azkaban for that matter. There was no point jumping to conclusions now though.

The guys had done enough damage in the little time that they had. They really did take after their parents, who were honoured as the best at well placed knockouts. McLaggen wouldn't be waking up in Mungo's after that one, but he would be making a trip to the Hospital Wing, which may be followed by a couple days filled with a lovely headache.

Now that Lily was long gone, Rose felt herself begin to tremble. She really wasn't as strong as she made herself out to be. If only Victorie or Dominique were there to talk to. She missed having them at school with her. They had been to her what she was to Lily. It was hard being the oldest and apparently the wisest. Considering they were the daughters of Fleur, they were absolutely gorgeous and they knew exactly what they were doing when it came to the male species. Rose sighed, now she was the eldest female at Hogwarts in the family and that meant the younger girls came to her for advice. Sometimes she didn't feel that she should be the one telling them how to find love. After all she had been awful at anything to do in the love category. Sex on the other hand was her speciality.

Over the past few years she had even had some of the older girls come to her for sex advice. It was well known that Rose Weasley knew what she was doing in that department. Now if only she could figure out how to handle guys she liked.

By this time Lily had threaded her way through the corridors, passageways and staircases to Gryffindor Tower. It still amazed her sometimes how she found her way around the castle. Everything moved and it wasn't uncommon to find yourself in a corridor that it appeared you had never set foot in, only to realize it was in fact the corridor that housed your Charms classroom. The fact that the occupants of portraits moved around didn't help either.

When she approached the Fat Lady she muttered the password and stepped inside, ignoring what the portrait said in the process. She barely made it through the portrait hole before she was yanked into her brothers' arms.

"Where were you?"

"How are you?"

"I was with Rose," Lily shrugged, "she didn't expel you?"

"Nah," James shrugged.

"Just ranted..."

"And ranted..."

"Don't forget she ranted..."

People that knew their parents said that James was exactly like his Uncles, Fred and George when they were students. Lily had only been able to get to know George, and he wasn't the same as everyone's stories depicted him to be. Her dad had told her that after the Final Battle, and Fred's death, George had lost a lot of his spark.

Lily pulled her two brothers over to a set of empty chairs and told them to sit down. She had them wrapped around her finger.

"We got something like a weeks detention each and 20 points apiece taken away but really I got far worse when I was caught out after curfew. I think that old bat may actually have a clue what's going on in this school after all."

"I thought she was going to expel you. I was so terrified," Lily muttered.

"Not with Jay's sweet talking, there was no way she was going to kick us out," Al mused, "he had her absolutely melting at his tales of heroic behaviour. Kind of reminded me of Dad when he's pleading to Mom."

James beamed, his pride and joy was being able to get anybody out of even the stickiest of situations just by utilizing his words. It was those abilities that had pushed him in the direction of working for the Department of Magical Law Enforcement after leaving school. There he would train to be a member of the Wizengemot Prosecution Board.

"How's Rose doing?" James asked.

"She was fine, normal, same as always. Why?"

"Nothing," he quickly shook his head but Lily didn't miss the quick glance that he shot Al.

"Guy's come on, what's wrong with Rose?"

"Maybe you should ask her yourself."

"I should probably go find her, she wanted to know how you guy's did with Cutteridge. She'll be please to find out she was right once again. She was trying to convince me that you weren't going to be expelled."

Lily stood up and tugged roughly on her skirt that had rode up as she was sitting.

"Ah, Lily."

"What Al?"

"Did you by any chance see McLaggen as we were being hauled away?"

"No, but Rose said he's in the Hospital Wing, what did you guys do?"

"A little of this, and a little of that. Let's just say we don't think he'll be coming anywhere near you anytime soon. Or even back to this common room."

"Yeah I heard his mates talking as we were making our way back up here that he's moaning that he'll have nowhere to sleep because he doesn't want to be in the same tower as us ever again. Something along the lines of he's scared we'll murder him in his sleep."

"Not that we'd ever dream of doing anything of the sort," the other finished.

The three siblings burst out laughing and with that as her exit cue, Lily turned and exited the portrait hole.

The classroom that Lily and Rose had been occupying was on Lily's pathway so she stopped into see if Rose was there, just incase. She wasn't, so she continued down the many flights of stairs to the dungeons. Honestly, Lily didn't know how Rose didn't go mental in the confines of the dungeons. It was so dark, dreary and green. Definitely not to her liking, she'd stick with the spacious, warm comfort of the Gryffindor Tower thank you very much.

Unfortunately she wasn't able to enter the Slytherin's Common Room, so she had to wait outside until somebody came. It took about ten minutes. Her back was pressed up against the cold stone and it was causing her to shiver, she was just about to stand up and walk around when finally somebody appeared around the corner.

"I'll tell Rose," the stranger said.

"Thanks."

It was common knowledge that the redheads around the castle were Weasley's, and if one was to be found in the dungeons, they were most likely on the hunt for Rose Weasley.

It took another five minutes for Lily's elder cousin to make her appearance in the corridor.

"Did you find them?" she asked.

"Rose, are you okay?" Lily questioned, it was painfully obvious even in the dim light that Rose had been crying.

"Let's go," she roughly grabbed the other redheads arm and pulled her back down the corridor towards the stairs. Once they were safely away from the entrance to the common room, Rose sank down to the floor. Lily followed suit mere seconds later.

"The guys were wondering if you were okay? What's going on?" Lily murmured, it wasn't often she saw her cousin like this. Come to think of it, she didn't think she ever had. It was an unsettling sight, and one she didn't know quite how to approach. She'd wing it though. Rose had been to good to her, for her to just give up and walk away.

"Tell me first, what did McLaggen do to you in the classroom?" even when she was upset, she still had to try.

Shifting uncomfortably against the wall, Lily contemplated what she was going to say. Should she say? It would seem very immature and stupid. But then again, Rose was here, listening and waiting for an answer. The least she could do was talk. It was so hard to talk about. She was so embarrassed. In hindsight she could see how stupid it was. If only hindsight was apparent before you did something.

"Nothing happened Rose, at least not what you're thinking. He didn't touch me. I told him I liked him, that I really liked him. He didn't flinch, he just stood there and stared at me. So I reworded it and I don't even know why but I said it again. I guess I thought he just didn't hear me, or understand me. I told him that I had a crush on him and that I didn't know what he felt, or what he thought but that I just had to tell him and thought he should know. Then yeah, that was pretty much the extent of the conversation. He randomly changed the subject then but we still stood there awkwardly. He then asked if I was going to Hogsmeads next weekend, I said yes and he said I guess I'll see you around then. That's when we both kind of bolted. It was so incredibly awkward. I can't believe I did it. I'm mad that I did. It was horrible. Now he's spreading horrid rumours. I guess he just wanted to embarrass me like I embarrassed him. Happy? Your turn now."

Now it was Rose's turn to shift uncomfortably. Apparently she didn't like having her own medicine fed back to her. Served her right, Lily had to chuckle. At least seeing Rose like this made her feel a bit better. Her older cousin wasn't perfect after all. For too long Lily had been trying to mould herself like Rose, but now that she saw that she too had her flaws, it almost made Lily's adventures with the male gender seem not so bad.

Rose spun her head around, looking up and down the corridors to make sure nobody was there. It appeared to be empty, but they were in a school of magic so your vision could deceive you. Rose pulled out her wand and decided to add her own bit of magic to the mix. With a quick and efficient flick she tested the corridor for intruders. Their vision hadn't lied.

"Okay, I'm not going to go into the details. Just the bare bones here."

Lily nodded her encouragement this time.

"There's a guy, and just like I was trying to explain to you earlier, he knows I exist so I guess that is one battle won. The only problem is he doesn't really realize I'm a girl. I hang around with him and he jokes around and treats me just like I'm one of the guys. He talks about his girls with me, just like I'm his best mate. I feel helpless when it comes to changing this. I've liked him for ages, and just when I think I'm about to get over him, something comes up and I fall even harder. I feel stupid because I feel like I'm obsessed with this, but I just can't get past it."

"Well, my advice would be to tell him," Lily said with a straight face.

Rose didn't say anything, just stared down her cousin in disbelief.

"But then you can see how that turned out for me, so maybe I should advise against taking my advice."

That was all it took for the two girls to start rolling on the floor laughing.

"Let's agree to that then," Rose howled, "better yet, let's both stay away from the hints on how to get a boy, as it appears neither one of us is really all that skilled in that matter. Deal?"

"Deal."

They sealed it with a hug. They may end up as lonely old maidens, but at least there would be two maidens to occupy each other at family dinners when everyone sat alongside their spouse. Who said you needed a sister. A cousin was ten times better. You could have your adventures and then go your separate ways afterwards. You would never get sick of each other. They thanked the heavens that they at least had each other to weather the disasters with.

xxx

a/n I have to say this is by far my longest one shot, and I believe it's broken my record for most written in one go. It took me forever to write, but I wanted to make it worth your time to read and review. So please give me a little feedback about what you thought. You don't know how much it means to me. Thanks a bunch. PS I really do need something to justify taking half a day off from studying to bring you this story. Your reviews will brighten my horrible day I have coming tomorrow while I play catch up. Cheers.


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